


Storms May Draw Us Closer

by JonsaInTheNorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:38:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18794071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JonsaInTheNorth/pseuds/JonsaInTheNorth
Summary: There is love all around Winterfell, but Arya still aches and no one seems to see.





	Storms May Draw Us Closer

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in August 2016. Mild edits since. Let me know if I've done OK with Arya's characterization - I'm not so sure of it.

Her brother loves her sister and there is nothing Arya can do to stop it. Even now, when she has so much she never thought to have again, she cannot believe how achingly unfair life is. Jon was always hers and hers alone. Yes, he played with Rickon and Bran, and would have followed Robb to the ends of Westeros and beyond, but there was something special in their relationship that he did not share with any of their other siblings.

But Sansa came home first, and Sansa now has Jon deep love that Arya will never understand. They sit in Eddard and Catelyn’s former seats at the high table, a constant reflection of the Winterfell that once was. The laughter and joy of people in love fills the keep, from Jon and Sansa in their council room down to Rickon and Lya playing seek-and-find in the crypts.

Meera Reed sits beneath the hearttree with Bran every day, brings him his meals and holds him close at night. She valiant protects the greenseer as he looks back into the world no one else can see, and wheels him around in his chair when he goes through the rest of the castle. They laugh and joke and stare solemnly into the fire, remembering years of adventure spent in each other's company and days spent at Winterfell while Arya wandered the Riverlands, cold and wet and alone.

Even Jeyne Poole has found happiness, clinging to her strong husband’s arm as they walk through the glass gardens and giggling at his side during feasts. They are bound by a shared trauma but something more. Theon dances with Jeyne even though he always used to turn up his nose when she asked him to in their youth. His arms wrap around her and shield her from the horrors of the outside world. Even though her face is distorted by her scarred nose lost to frostbite, Theon still thinks Jeyne is the most beautiful woman in the world.

It isn’t fair, Arya thinks. Everyone has gone on and lived, they forget that the Long Night happened, that the War of the Five Kings took Mother and Father and Robb away.

Arya twists and turns in her great, lonely bed. Half the nights she wakes in shivering sweats, clutching her covers and throwing them away in the same motion. She tosses back the covers and storms out of her chambers, grabbing Needle before she goes. The room is too hot for comfort, too hot for her to sleep without dreams.

Maester Sam offered her some potion or another to help her sleep, but she refuses to take any concoction that may alter her mind. After the poison that took her sight all those years ago, she cannot abide to let anything control her again.

Jon is the one who finds her as dawn wakes on the horizon. She swirls and stabs, stepping through a fevered attack around the training yard dummies. Nymeria jumps around her master's heels, a partner in this ruthless dance.

“Arya, is everything alright?” He asks. Arya tries to stab around him, but he ducks away. “What’s wrong, little sister?”

“Nothing.” She grumbles before marching off. Jon tries to grab ahold of her elbow. Arya slips through his hands, wily as a fox and runs off.

How could he understand, this pain inside her? The tears come unbidden, hot and angry against her skin. He is a man grown, with a wife and responsibility in the keep. But Arya founders, drowns in the world that still has no place for her. Yes, she trains with the squires and teaches her brother and her friend, but even the pair of them have eyes for each other.

That night, Sansa glows as they sup. Her hand settles on Jon’s before she rises before their household. She stands and looks at him. He nods encouragingly, eyes bright and only for her.

Sansa beams at all of them, her siblings and their companions, the workers and their families. “We’re expecting our first child.”

A chorus of applause rises up, thunderous and echoing in the darkened hall. Arya forces a smile to her face. She is happy for her sister and her husband, but still the anger claims her. She hurts, the pain is deep inside her heart and soul, whatever little of that is left.

With all eyes on Sansa, perfect, beautiful Sansa, Arya disappears again.

Winterfell is changing even more, people are moving on. The halls will soon echo with the play and laughter of other children, girls and boys that will look so much like she and her siblings did when they were young, but something will always be wrong, wrong, wrong about the rebuilt castle that is so like the home of her childhood and yet so separate from the place of her dreams.

Ravens go out, announcing the birth of the first heir of Winterfell to the entire kingdom. Envoys come in, bearing gifts for the new lord or lady of the North. The Dragon Queen sends an egg to be lain in the child’s bed, a bounded mount for Jon’s child to ride. From Dorne come silks and wine, from the Reach flower bulbs for the gardens.

Gifts a plenty, until there comes an unmeant one for her.

Shireen Baratheon sends her close advisor and bastard cousin, someone Arya never thought to see again. He comes bearing a black stone dagger sent by his cousin, one forged from metal made from the sands to dragonglass by Viserion when the queen landed in the Stormlands during Daenerys’ Conquest.

He holds it out and Jon accepts it. Arya is frozen as she stares from her spot at the table. She would recognize the shock of black hair anywhere, but the steely blue eyes that meet hers are final confirmation.

She follows him out of the hall, bouncing on the edge of her toes. He must recognize her, he has to. Arya is much taller, yes, and her hair is plaited back like a proper lady’s, not sawed away uncaringly. But she is the same as Arry, as Nan, as she always has been.

He turns when she taps his shoulder, and stutters into a bow. “Milady.”

Arya flings her arms around his neck, refusing to let formalities separate the friendship that had flourished all those years before. Gendry is hesitant but soon his arms pull her close and she is overwhelmed by the smell of him, of smoke from his forge and the forests around.

Tears fill her eyes again. So much has changed, but this is the same. Their is comfort she has not found elsewhere, here under his arms. Gendry is part of her family and always will be. She has carried him in her heart with so much else, and now that he is out the rest follows shortly.

Arya shows him the glass gardens and the towers. They race horses through the wolfswood and she sits in the forge as he trades secrets and information with the Winterfell smith. Happiness fills her in his company in a way she has not felt in quite the time.

Sansa watches their interactions carefully. Arya is sure her sister disdains that Arya is with a lowborn bastard, so surprise comes when Sansa says she is happy for her.

“What do you mean?” Arya asks, suspicious of any happy wishes Sansa may give after someone outside the social order.

“You found someone to help ease your burden in life. That’s no small thing.” Arya tilts her head in confusion. Sansa sighs, and rubs a circle round her belly. “I see the way you gaze at him Arya. There’s no help in who you love, and no use denying yourself joy in this world.”

She had not thought of it that way. Arya finds herself studying Gendry in a way she never has before. He is handsome, she is sure, or else the serving girls would not gaze at him with such doe eyes. And he is better with a sword than he was before, although Arya still bests him nine times out of ten.

When Arya kisses him, it is in the wolfswood as they take their horses to water. She meets him tentatively at first. His lips are soft and warm. Gendry does not push her away, does not egg her on past her limits. Gendry holds her close and tight, and gives promises of never letting her go so long as she needs him.

He does not return to the Stormlands, instead remaining by her side. She sees now that love is what saved the rest of them, this intimate and terrifying thing. At night when she wakes, it is Gendry besides her, not terrors of the night. It is Gendry who pulls her close and rubs her back until she knows where she is and know she is safe again.

She is still revulsed by the kisses she sees her siblings share, and the gestures and glances of devotion between Bran and Meera. Arya still torments Lya when she confesses her affection for the youngest Stark, but there is a confidence and happiness in her jeers that was not their before.

In time, the laughter of many children fills the halls of Winterfell once again. It is not what it once was, but it is better than it has been.

**Author's Note:**

> You can hit me up at [tumblr](https://www.starksinthenorth.tumblr.com) for more ASOIAF speculation and GOT fun. If you'd like to see a prompt filled or have a request, feel free to send one to my tumblr [ask box](https://www.starksinthenorth.tumblr.com/ask).


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